Assemblages of Fractured Gatherings: The Academic(Un)ConferenceMachine at Work

Academic conferences are intended to foster knowledge transfer, networking, and innovation, yet they often reproduce rigid formats that limit creativity, engagement, and meaningful exchange. In response, unconference formats have emerged as alternatives that aim to disrupt established norms and encourage inclusivity, creativity, and new modes of knowledge production. This paper explores the lived experiences of academics—organizers, presenters, and participants—navigating what we term the conferencing machine. The concept highlights how conferences have become vehicles for neoliberal forces, imposing logics of competition, productivity, and institutional dominance rather than fostering dialogue and progress. Drawing on post-qualitative inquiry and data from attendees, presenters and organizers, we assemble a polyphonic story of subjectivities and lived experiences. Our findings reveal how academic gatherings, even unconferencing formats, are widely experienced as redundant, hierarchical, and resistant to innovation, contributing to fatigue, cynicism, and hostile social dynamics. Yet, we also identify moments of effective disruption in uncoference doing that generate opportunities for resonance, critique, and spontaneous collaboration. These insights not only document current developments in academia but also point to the urgent need for formats that foreground playfulness, kindness, and curiosity, and ultimately reimagine the possibilities of scholarly knowledge creation.